Mark Pope finished his press conference with a bold statement about the rest of Kentucky's season

Kentucky basketball had a major letdown in the second biggest game of the season so far on Tuesday against Michigan State in the Champions Classic. After failing in the their first big test of the season last week at Louisville with poor defense, that same defensive effort took the floor in Madison Square Garden.

The Wildcats came into Tuesday's game with a top 10 defense in the country analytically. They were facing a team who came in ranked 232nd in scoring offense, including 355th in three-point percentage. Michigan State made just 14 threes on the year entering the game. All of that was thrown out the window after Kentucky's absolutely embarassing performance on that end. Then, there's the offense, where Kentucky just couldn't find a flow at all, including no ball movement and minimal cutting, with a lot of one-on-one plays where teammates weren't getting the touches that would help open up the offense.

That has led to fans and many media wondering if Kentucky has a lack of chemistry after yet another game where the effort was in question on defense, and where ball movement was very limited on offense. Mark Pope ended his press conference with a bold statement about the future of Kentucky's season after failing their first two big tests of the season, now with plenty of glaring issues to work on.

"We won't fail this season. We just have failed up till today. And we will build an organization where we won't be disrupted every time someone steps in and steps out. We'll have a team identity, not an individual identity. Until we get there, we're going to really struggle. That's my job. That's why Mitch (Barnhart) brought me here. I'm doing it poorly. I won't do it poorly for much longer.”

Among Kentucky's poor offensive flow, with a lot of stagnant ball movement, it was their defensive performance that should not be skipped over, because the Spartans were literally one of the worst shooting teams in the country, and Kentucky just gave them easy looks all game, and had no answer for stopping them from getting to the rim, either. Mark Pope said multiple times after their 17-point loss that their identity is not there right now, and there is a big communication issue that he took blame for.

"My messaging is not resonating with the guys right now. That's my responsibility. We're not playing like our teams play, and that's my communication issue," Pope said. "I feel like the identity that we felt like we carried has maybe been stripped away. " As Pope said in the first quote mentioned, he and the team are in search of getting that identity back.

Pope will look to get the team's identity back and get his team back to being connected like it was when the Wildcats beat down Purdue in the preseason, and show that same fight and desire that has seemed lost since. Their identity has not been there in both of their big games in the regular season, and they'll face their next big challenge against North Carolina in Rupp Arena on December 2.